


The Penny Tour

by Vituperative_cupcakes



Category: Sleuth (2007)
Genre: Character musing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vituperative_cupcakes/pseuds/Vituperative_cupcakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milo breaks into Andrew's house to set up the trick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Penny Tour

The ladder descended with an electronic groaning noise. Too loud in the dim dark. Milo waited at the window, ear open for any response.

Nothing. Even the bloody peacocks were silent.

Milo smiled and put a hand to the chain. It creaked beneath his weight, but held. Milo let himself dangle from the last rung and dropped in a crouch, letting the momentum fold him up. The sound of the landing was negligible. Milo allowed himself the barest chuckle as he unstrapped the parcel from his waist. The bundle had ballooned out his midsection, like the fat-padding he had decided to wear for his detective character. He had already decided on glasses(to further hide his eyes) a mustache(to disguise the shape of his mouth) but was still puzzling out the name. Doppler made him giggle, but it was too on-the-nosey, same with Will Wilson and Tyler Durden.

Milo walked barefooted, holding his breath. Maggie had warned him of the burglar system, but even she hadn't know where everything was. Thankfully the stairs were clear.

Milo took no small pleasure in dribbling pig's blood on Andrew’s floor, wiping his bare feet on the pillow and replacing the coverlet for good measure. He tossed his balled-up clothes in Andrew's closet, next to the identical black suits, sneering. _I dressed up for you_. Now his good Italian shirt and vest were stiff with swine blood; a pretty apt visual metaphor for the whole thing, Milo thought.

Milo put his finger in one of the bullet holes, winding it back and forth, looking up at the house itself.

Ghastly little place. If the interior was any reflection of the man within, and it was, Andrew Wyke was a dangerous individual.

Milo decided to have a proper look around. Without Lord Fauntleroy giving him the penny tour, warning him not to scrape his simple head on the artwork. Milo circled around the wire man. Apparently the only two things money couldn't buy were love and good taste. Did Wyke even know half the artists? Milo would bet he didn't.

All these spikes and edges and angles were bad feng shui. Had Wyke really expected Maggie to live in  _this_? Milo put a foot to the tiling and shivered. No, this wasn't a love nest. This was a fortress. A warning. The whole house was like Bluebeard's forbidden room.  _This is what I look like when I'm **happy** , you don't want to see me upset._

Maggie haunted the wall, in a dress that hugged her figure and showed off ample cleavage. Sick, really. Why a man whose wife deserted him would keep her picture up on the wall escaped Milo, probably beat his stick to it on lonely nights when the house felt too empty.

Worse, there was Wyke himself, leering from the wall nearby through lidded snake-eyes. The larger-than-life portrait looked as if it were glowering directly at Maggie's tightly-clothed visage. Milo couldn't help but think that was intentional.

A snore was cut in half by a snort. Milo zeroed in on the sound like a dog.

So the old blighter really did sleep in the study. Milo cocked his head and made a simpering face.

Andrew had made a pathetic little bed for himself on the sofa, sheet kicked off one foot. Milo traced the arch with his fingertip. Andrew did not jerk away, but spread his toes, tensing his foot. Milo gave a silent little chuckle.

The older man's head rested on his forearm, fingers outspread as if clutching the air. Probably wake up full of pins and needles. There was a reading lamp with a square iron base on the nearest table. It made Milo's fingers itch.

_I could kill you now, Andrew,_ he thought,  _just crack open your skull. And no one would be the wiser for it._

Andrew breathed deep, pupils stirring beneath heavy lids. He looked helpless, not menacing at all. Of course, that was part of his threat, the benign act. _Ooh, I’m a poor old man. I'm so lonely, and so rich, I’ve no one to share my fortune with_. Milo knew. Maggie had told him a little of their courtship, or rather, Andrew's pursuit. Boyish gestures, like flowers and chocolates. _Wooing_.

Milo put their faces very close together. The warm breeze of Andrew's breath brushed his face. Their noses nearly touched. Up close, Andrew's eyelashes were a thick, milky fringe, and his hair caught the silver in the moonlight. Relaxed, he was almost handsome.

_No,_ Milo thought _, it's not enough._

It would play right into his hands, wouldn't it? The working-class git didn't have enough in him to play the game, had to resort to caveman violence. No, Milo would play his game. He'd play it better. He'd pay Andrew back, tenfold.

Milo smiled and brushed his lips the barest centimeter above Andrew's forehead. The older man's mouth quirked a bit, as if dreaming something nice.

“Sweet dreams, love,” Milo said in a ghost whisper. Andrew didn't stir.

Milo let himself out.

 


End file.
